2009-10 NBA Preview: San Antonio Spurs

[duncan228]

Welcome to The Recliner GM Sports Blog (http://www.reclinergm.com/) – where you get basketball, baseball and football insights, predictions, wild speculation and idle conjecture from two Philadelphia guys who probably know less than you.

2009-10 NBA Preview: San Antonio Spurs (http://www.reclinergm.com/2009-10-nba-preview-san-antonio-spurs/)
by Dannie & Pete

San Antonio Spurs
2008-09 Record: 54-28

Anticipated Starting Five

PG- Tony Parker
SG- Manu Ginobili
SF- Richard Jefferson
PF- Antonio McDyess
C- Tim Duncan

Key Reserves: Michael Finley, George Hill, DeJuan Blair, Matt Bonner, Roger Mason

Biggest Strength: Front court

Duncan is Duncan, we all know about the hall of famer. But they acquired Antonio McDyess and Theo Ratliff. They drafted a beast in DeJuan Blair how had 16 points and 19 boards in his first preseason game in just 22 minutes. Please read that stat line again 19 boards in 22 minutes. He was a flat out steal. Then you toss in Bonner who spreads the floor as last year’s 8th best three-point shooter.

Their front court is tough, deep and versatile.

Biggest Weakness: If you find one let me know

Just take a look at their roster. Where do you see a real weakness? They have experience, shooting, penetrators, post scorers, shot blockers, rebounders. Just about everything.

The only two areas they aren’t great is athleticism and age. And I’d argue age is more strength then weakness. If they stay healthy they are good enough to win another championship.

Key Player: Manu

Is he back? Is he really healthy and can stay that way? If so they are in position to make another run. Manu is the versatile wing player and 4th quarter offensive killer. It’s really that simple.

Biggest Question: Is this their last best shot?

You can’t really call the Spurs a dynasty, winning 4 titles in a decade gets you pretty close. After last year, it seemed that Duncan’s knees might finally let him down and Manu might be losing a step. But – instead of throwing in the towel, they made some great moves in the off-season, acquiring Richard Jefferson from the Bucks for nothing in particular, signing Antonio McDyess and drafting DeJuan Blair. Suddenly their bench is younger and decent and they have another 20 point scorer to lighten the load off Manu and Duncan. They went from trendy pick to take a big step back, to seriously title contenders, maybe for the last time.

Best Individual Season of All-Time: David Robinson, 1993-94

29.8 ppg, 10.7 rpg, 4.8 apg, 1.7 spg, 3.3 bpg

A center with 5 assists and 2 steals a game? While leading the league in scoring? Not too bad, Mr. Robinson. This season was the 9th highest PER in the history of the game – Only Wilt, MJ and LeBron had better seasons.

Pete’s 2010 Outlook: 1st place, Southwest division / 2nd place, Western conference / 3rd place, NBA

In my experience, when people start predicting the fall of good players (Duncan, Manu), they are almost always a couple years too early. I think that will be the case here as well. I’m not a Spurs fan, but I love the make-up of this current squad. Elite PG, elite big man, high-scoring wing, big-time toughness inside, 3 point-shooters and a wildcard in Ginobili (who is one of my least favorite players for bringing the soccer flopping, fake injury thing over to the NBA). I haven’t chosen my Western Conference champ yet, but the Spurs might end up at the top of that list.

Dannie’s 2010 Outlook: 1st place, Southwest division / 2nd place, Western conference / 5th place, NBA

This is a championship team with championship experience. They have the talent overall. They know what it takes to win and their coach knows how to get them there. I have one key: Richard Jefferson. He isn’t the key player because his impact won’t be as great as a healthy Manu. But where he needs to thrive is on the defensive end. He needs to replace Bowen defensively. Thinking big picture the Spurs will have face some combination of Kobe/Artest/Odom, Melo, Brandon Roy, Josh Howard. Jefferson will get some shot attempts but frankly he’s never really been an great or efficient scorer. With the Spurs he needs to make open shots (threes) and lock up. If he does, this team will be a tough out in the playoffs for any anyone.

[NASpurs]

Ginobili (who is one of my least favorite players for bringing the soccer flopping, fake injury thing over to the NBA)

http://i.cdn.turner.com/sivault/multimedia/photo_gallery/0902/history.feb3/images/vlade-divac.jpg


says hello.

Manu used to be a notorious flopper, I'll admit that but has this guy seen Manu play the last two or three years? What a moron.

[duncan228]

BallerBlogger.com is an NBA blog owned and edited by Brandon Hoffman. Brandon has covered the NBA with media credentials since the 2007-08 season and has been linked to or referenced by ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, CBSSports, FOXSports, and NBA.com.

San Antonio Spurs (http://ballerblogger.com/2009/10/08/season-preview-san-antonio-spurs-2/)

Coach: Gregg Popovich
2007-08 Record: 54-28
Pythagorean Record for 07-08: 52-30
Offensive Rating: 108.5 (13th in the league)
Defensive Rating: 104.3 (5th)
Possessions per 48: 88.4 (26th)
Four Factors:

eFG% TOV% RB% FT/FGA

Offensive 51.3 (6th) .117 (1st) .221 (30th) .191 (30th)
Defensive 48.7 (7th) .117 (29th) .780 (1st) .191 (1st)

Roster (Red indicates new acquisition, Blue indicates rookie)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2626/3976120540_e807f50174_b.jpg

Do yourself a favor and go look up Tim Duncan’s career stats (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/duncati01.html), and just marvel at them. In the last 8 years, he’s had an offensive rating of at least 110 six times. His usage rate has stayed between 27.7% and 29%. His rebound rate has ranged from 18.7% to 19.6%. That’s just remarkable consistency, and consistent excellence. At 32, he was as good offensively as he’s ever been, and was even better in the playoffs. The concern for San Antonio is that Duncan appears to have lost a step on defense. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still one of the league’s elite defenders, but the decline in his athleticism has hurt his effectiveness as a help defender, as evidenced by his career-low block rate last year. The other problem is that his minutes have to be monitored more closely than ever. He’s still one of the league’s top 10 players, and he can still dominate a playoff series, but he can’t single-handedly carry a team like he used to.

I don’t think enough can be made of the tremendous offseason San Antonio had. They effectively swapped Bruce Bowen and Kurt Thomas for Richard Jefferson, Antonio McDyess, and DeJuan Blair. That’s an immense upgrade. As hard as Bowen works on defense, he’s no spring chicken, and he’s a truly terrible offensive player. Though Thomas was very effective in limited minutes last season, he’s also among the league’s oldest players, and certainly not as good as the guys who are replacing him.

Jefferson is such a great addition for this team. He’s coming off two of the best seasons of his career, and he adds some much needed athleticism on the wing. Two things in particular should help him fit in with the Spurs. First, he drilled 46% of his corner three-pointers last year, and I shouldn’t have to explain to you the importance of corner threes in the Spurs’ system. Second, he drew fouls at an excellent rate, something the Spurs drastically need. They ranked dead last in getting to the free throw line, so Jefferson should help improve that. He’s a vast improvement on the small forward options the Spurs have had the last few years, and not many teams can boast a 4th option as good as Jefferson.

A feature player before knee options derailed his career, McDyess has done a great job making the transition to role player. For the last few years, he’s thrived in Detroit as a mid-range shooter and rebounder. In fact, amazingly enough he posted his career-high rebound rate last year at the age of 34. While his rebound rate will almost certainly drop playing next to Duncan this year, his shooting ability adds another element to the Spurs’ offense, and he should thrive off the playmakers around him.

I can’t believe DeJuan Blair fell as far as he did in the draft. It’s almost unthinkable that a guy who was so dominant in college would drop so much, especially since rebounding is one of the skills that translates best from the college game to the NBA. Blair is probably going to foul a lot, and he doesn’t have a very diverse offensive game, but man the guy can rebound. Last year he actually posted the highest offensive rebound rate of the decade in college basketball, and it wasn’t even close. He doesn’t play above the rim, but his great strength, huge wingspan, and uncanny knack for the ball make him as good an offensive rebounder as you’re likely to find. Since the Spurs finished dead last in that category last year, I think Blair can definitely contribute in a 15-20 minute role off the bench.

Take a quick guess at the 5 guys in the league who used the highest percentage of their teams’ possessions. Done? Well, you probably had Wade, LeBron, and Kobe on there, and you may have even guessed Carmelo as well, but did anyone have Tony Parker at 4th on that list? With Manu out most of the year and Duncan slowing down, the traditionally balanced Spurs attack became the Tony Parker show, and he was absolutely brilliant running it. When asked to carry a bigger load than he ever has, Parker responded by posting a career-high offensive rating (112), a career-high assist percentage (40.1%), and a career-low turnover rate (11.6). That’s stepping up your game, folks. The biggest difference came in his shooting, as he buried 45.5% of his long two-pointers, making him all but unguardable on the pick-and-roll. His bread and butter though, is getting to the rim. He’s one of the quickest players in the league, and nobody uses his body better to ward off defenders. He’s the best below-the-rim finisher in the game, using every move in the book (floaters, up-and-unders, reverses; you name it he does it) to score over bigger players. It seem like he’s been around forever, but Parker is only 27, and there’s no reason to think he can’t maintain this level of play, though he probably won’t be asked to do quite so much this season.

X-Factor: Manu Ginobili - I was kind of surprised to see that Manu actually played really well when he wasn’t injured last year. Most guys who miss half the season also spend most of the time they are on the court getting back into a rhythm. Manu, though he wasn’t quite as good as in his previous two seasons, was still an outstanding player when he was out there. The problem is that at 32 he can’t absorb hits like he used to. Even though he’s played under 600 NBA games, he’s racked up plenty of games internationally, and, much like Dwyane Wade, his constant forays into the lane make him more susceptible to injury. The Spurs will try to limit his minutes to keep him on the floor, and the addition of Jefferson should help with that, but there’s still going to be that risk. They can live through some bumps and bruises, and a missed game here and there, but Ginobili has to be healthy come playoff time, or they don’t have a chance.

Overview

I don’t know if any team in the West has a higher ceiling than San Antonio, and that includes LA. Duncan, Manu, Parker and Jefferson are as good a foursome as there is, and the Spurs have put together their best supporting cast in some time. George Hill, Roger Mason, McDyess, Blair, Matt Bonner, Michael Finley, all capable of being above-average role players. If everyone is healthy, there’s a depth of talent here that I don’t think the Spurs have had in any of their title runs. However, there is that health thing. Save Boston, there may not be another team in the league with the injury worries of San Antonio. They don’t need everyone to be healthy all year, like always this team is built for the playoffs, but they do need every hand on deck once the playoffs start. If Timmy or Manu aren’t in good shape when the postseason roles around, then nothing else really matters. The plus side is that this newfound depth should prevent those stars from logging too many minutes, and help keep them fresh for when they’re really needed. The fantastic offseason propped the window open a bit longer, and with a little luck they may be able to get one more ring for the greatest power forward of all time.

[Morg1411]

All around nice articles. Ought to be a fun season.

[duncan228]

San Antonio Spurs Season Preview (http://www.slamonline.com/online/nba/2009/10/48496/)
by Ryan Desmarais
SLAM

We conclude the Southwest Division previews with the San Antonio Spurs. You can read past previews here (http://www.slamonline.com/online/tag/season-previews/).

The San Antonio Spurs might be the most boring team in the NBA.

Seriously.

I mean, there’s nothing exciting about the way they play. They want a slow tempo to all of their games. It seems like they want their offense to be as methodical as possible in order to put opposing teams to sleep, while they’re defense takes advantage of the mistakes made by their groggy opponents.

Their superstar’s nickname is “The Big Fundamental.” That might be the most boring, bland nickname I’ve ever heard in the history of sports.

NBA fans can thank Gregg Popovich for this “style” of play. He likes to keep a controlled tempo and make sure his team doesn’t get into shootouts with some of the run-and-gun teams in the West like Phoenix and Golden State. In fact, the Spurs haven’t averaged 100 points a game over a season this decade.

But something tells me that Popovich couldn’t care less about entertaining us.

Actually, a few things tell me that: his four championship rings.

The Spurs played as their extremely boring selves last season and, once again, made the postseason. But something was different about this team. They seemed even more boring than before. One thing after another went wrong for a team that seemingly has yearly title aspirations.

Injuries and age appeared to catch up to the core of the Spurs. Manu Ginobili, their most exciting player (which is kind of like being the MVP of the Beer League), was injured during the Olympics, appeared in only 44 games and clearly wasn’t completely right. Tony Parker suffered a sprained ankle early in the season while Ginobili was recovering and missed a couple of weeks. Tim Duncan would miss a few games later in the season, as well.

They also suffered from very little depth. Aside from a good year from Roger Mason, Jr., the Spurs had to rely on the recently retired Bruce Bowen, 36-year-old Michael Finley, 37-year-old Kurt Thomas, and Matt Bonner, one of the greatest basketball players to ever come out of the state of New Hampshire (once again, see the Beer League analogy). While offering great experience, they’re far from in their prime and couldn’t offer everything the depleted Spurs needed to pick up the slack.

The end result? Gettting blown out of the playoffs by their in-state rivals, the Dallas Mavericks.

Fast forward to this season and everyone who talks about San Antonio talks about the steal of the offseason: Richard Jefferson. The Spurs traded a bag of basketballs and some Gatorade to the Bucks for the Jefferson, who immediately bolsters their offense and gives them a deeper roster. RJ has the ability to both move without the ball as well as create his own shot, allowing the floor to open up for Parker and Ginobili to penetrate.

They took their thieving momentum into the NBA Draft and kidnapped Pittsburgh power forward DeJuan Blair in the second round, as I still question how he was passed over time after time. Blair gives the Spurs another wide body that can work well in the post and he is an excellent rebounder on both ends of the floor, which was possibly his strongest asset in college.

They added another veteran in Antonio McDyess, a guy who has been able to resurrect his career after a solid first few years in the League were tarnished by numerous injury-plagued seasons. He gives the Spurs another big that can play inside and collect boards as well as hit the mid-range jumper when left open. At 35, he’s long past his prime, but San Antonio won’t be asking him to be the franchise savior. He’ll just be another weapon that can play 15 to 20 minutes a night and contribute.

But the biggest assets for the Spurs continue to be their mainstays. Duncan, Ginobili, and Parker are still three of the best players in the League and are needed to perform at a high level on a nightly basis in order for this team to have a chance to reach their goal. Duncan has been one of the most consistent players in the NBA over his career as you can pretty much mark him down to average 20 and 10 every season. Ginobili continues to be a dangerous threat offensively with his ability to penetrate as well as knock down outside shots. He is also a pesky defender who will get his steals and take charges. Parker, who is amazingly only 27, is just coming into his prime years and has become both a fantastic scorer and a very good facilitator.

And Popovich will still lead this team into battle every night. He’s arguably a top-three coach in the League and a future Hall of Famer and his players continue to buy into his coaching style, regardless of how boring we may think it is.

So what can we expect from the Spurs this season? Pretty much what we’ve seen from them all decade. They’ll win 55 to 60 games during the regular season and make a deep playoff run.

But how far will they go? If healthy, they’ll be right there with the Lakers as one of the teams to represent the West in the Finals. If they’re walking wounded, there’s a good chance they’ll be playing golf in May and June.

Either way, don’t expect any high-scoring affairs this season with the Spurs.

Or any other season, for that matter.

Don’t forget to grab your pillow.

[Blackjack]

^^ Garbage.:td

Ryan Desmarais, that is..